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How to expand your business marketing message with video

April 22, 2016

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By: Leona Henryson

Freelance Business Consultant

Henryson&Co

The era of writing boring prospects to win clients is finally dying for the B2B segment

As marketing becomes more and more visual, they open their minds and strategies to new possibilities, including the use of videos to promote their products and services - accordingly to the B2B Content Marketing: 2015 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trendsreport, published by the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, 76 per cent of B2B marketers published video content on YouTube in the last year.

But, of course, this still can seem a challenge to many companies as they deal with a very specific target audience which can be quite conservative sometimes.

And yet there are a few goals that you can safely achieve by using videos on your next B2B marketing campaign. Here they are:

Videos can increase your brand awareness

You will create your video with a catchy message and then publish it somewhere. It can be on TV or on YouTube, for example. So it will go public, and anybody in the world will see it and hear your message.

It sounds a bit counterproductive as you are not targeting your audience specifically. But what matters here is that you will be reaching them in a different scenario. That is to say that:

You won’t be reaching them in the office when they are more likely to be busy and not interested in anything that will disturb their schedule; they will be at home instead, relaxed and more prone to listen.

Everybody watches TV or YouTube now and then. So you will reach your audience at some stage, you just need to work on your research and find the best channels and time to do so.

If you don’t reach the CEO, you might still reach a director, a manager, an officer. And you never know who will be asked for an opinion when the time comes to decide on buying your product (or not).

Even if the video isn’t targeted to sales, it will bring value to your company, not only among customers and stakeholders but the public opinion in general. And you never know when it will be an asset for you in terms of public relations, for example.

That is to say that publishing videos can take your brand awareness efforts to the next level, so you should embrace it for sure.

Videos can connect through emotion

Let’s face it: the corporative world can be a bit too cold. The so-called professionalism still requires some distance from our private lives, and even a detachment from our emotions.

But the best marketing studies will say that emotion is the best weapon to use in order to sell any kind of product or service. You need to create some kind of bonding between your client and your company so they will buy what you are offering and still come back for more.

So how can you conciliate both ideas in your B2B business? By creating a video.

A video will give you the opportunity to humanize your company and to show a different side of our product or service. You will be allowed to make your client cry or laugh. You can also use it to show that your team cares about what they do and about their customers. Or you can engage your audience by let them know the social work that your company does, so they feel like their money is going to a good cause.

All right, you might be thinking that companies don’t make emotional decisions, that all is based on budget, logic and need at the end of the day. If you think like this, you are forgetting that decisions are made by people and that we are driven by our feelings even when we think we aren’t.

Plus, take into consideration that there are times when two products offer the same conditions and similar pricing. And here is where the choice is determined purely by emotion.

Your competition is doing it

Finally, if the reasons above haven’t convinced you yet, it is time for you to consider that your competitors is very likely to be publishing videos right now – and you aren’t. Meaning that they are reaching your target audience while you can’t decide if you should do it or not.

Do some online research – starting with YouTube, of course - and figure out what your competitors are doing so far in terms of videos. You will be surprised by the large number of them that you will find already investing in high-quality ads.

This can also be a good opportunity for you to check their statistics (number of views, likes, and shares), so you can have an idea of what might work for you too. Check which messages they are trying to deliver, the resources they have used, and if they are targeting a more specific audience as well.

To sum up

Videos are a perfect way to expand your B2B marketing strategy. It will not only increase your sales but also your brand awareness while reinforcing the emotional connection between your company and your clients.

So don’t be afraid to go to your board of directors and to discuss with them the possibility to include videos on your next marketing campaign. And take with you a couple of videos from your competitors, so they will understand that is a bad move to be the only one not doing it.